Resident Doctors in England to Stage Five-Day Strike in November

Doctors in England are set to begin a five consecutive day walkout next month, in protest over pay and employment.

Strike Details

The British Medical Association (BMA) announced that junior physicians will walk out for five days in a row from November 14 at 7am to 7am on 19 November.

Resident doctors, who make up about half of all doctors in the National Health Service, are taking this action after failed negotiations with the government.

Reasons Behind the Strike

The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee stated, “We did not want to reach this point. We have spent the last week in talks with officials, urging the health minister to resolve the crisis of unemployed physicians.”

“We know from our own survey half of second-year doctors in the UK are struggling to find jobs, their talents being unused whilst millions of patients endure long waits for care and shifts in hospitals go unfilled. This cannot continue.”

He continued, “We talked with the government in good faith, hoping the minister to understand that a agreement including options to slowly restore the pay reductions over several years, giving newly trained doctors a raise of only £1 per hour for the coming four years.”

“We trusted the authorities would recognize that our asks are not just fair but are in the best interests of the community and our those we treat and would also help stop our doctors departing from the health service.”

Who Are Resident Physicians?

Junior physicians have anywhere up to eight years’ experience working as a hospital doctor, depending on their specialty, or up to three years in primary care.

More details will follow soon.